Culture » May 20, 2008

Atheism’s Unholy Trinity

By Jarrett Dapier

Last spring, Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, flew to California to see some atheists about God. Over the course of two debates — one in Los Angeles, the other in Berkeley — Hedges sparred with Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, and Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great. According to Aneli Rufus, who reported on the Hedges vs. Hitchens debate for AlterNet, Hedges was “trounced.”

Atheism 2, God 0.

Now, out of these debates comes Hedges’ latest book, I Don’t Believe In Atheists (Free Press, 2008), a relentless, deeply considered defense of the religious impulse.

The book’s title is neither an accurate personal statement nor a reflection of the volume’s contents. As Hedges has said, he is no atheist. Nevertheless, he eloquently defends atheists who are “intellectually honest” — those “who accept an irredeemable and flawed human nature” — and believes “they hold an honored place in a pluralistic and diverse community.” Intended to provoke, the title sets up false expectations for a simplistic “no atheists in foxholes” screed that sells the book short.

Instead, Hedges’ main target is utopia, which he calls “the most dangerous legacy of the Christian faith and Enlightenment.” And primarily in the works of evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins, as well as Hitchens and Harris — the “new atheists,” as Hedges calls them — the author finds a morally bankrupt utopian worldview that divides humanity between the primitive faithful and the civilized rational.

According to Hedges, the new atheists argue that once humanity is delivered from religion — what Hitchens has called “man-made filthy propaganda” — and places its faith in science and reason, we will finally advance morally as a species. But “hidden under the jargon of reason and science,” writes Hedges, this conviction is a secular version of religious extremism. To Hedges, this makes them dangerous.

“Too many of the new atheists, like the Christian fundamentalists, support the imperialist projects and pre-emptive wars of the United States as necessities in the battle against terrorism and irrational religion,” he writes. To make his case, he cites Harris’ justification for a nuclear first-strike on the Middle East and Hitchens’ continued support for democracy-via-bombing in Iraq.

Hedges doesn’t mince words about these atheists: They are “suburban mutations,” “hopeless epicures” and “products of the morally stunted world of entertainment.” Because many atheists conflate radical, literalist religion with all religion — and refuse to see any good that has come from faith — Hedges sees them as intellectually shallow. To him, one must come at faith honestly — through years of sustained thought, reading, reflection and introspection. The same goes for atheism.

One of the strengths of Atheists is Hedges’ authority to write on the topic. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he witnessed how his father’s faith inspired him to fight for social justice, even when it was deeply unpopular in the rural, upstate New York communities in which he preached. It was this model of courage-through-faith that led Hedges to pursue a degree from Harvard’s Divinity School, where he gained his understanding of theology.

Hedges spent the next 20 years covering foreign wars for a host of newspapers, including the Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief. He has witnessed many of the late 20th century’s worst horrors — in Algeria, Bosnia, El Salvador, Iraq, Kosovo and Sudan (where he was imprisoned). Hedges mined these experiences to great effect in his excellent, hard-hitting 2003 book, War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning.

In a 2008 interview with Salon, Hedges said, “I spent so long in war zones that I think we don’t know what we would do under repression and abuse. … That’s the brilliance of the great writers on the Holocaust, like Primo Levi. … They understood the humanity of their own killers.”

Hedges spends the first half of Atheists refuting the claim that humanity has advanced morally. “The Enlightenment myth … taught that our physical and social environment could be transformed through rational manipulation. … [But] human history is not a long chronicle of human advancement. It includes our cruelty, barbarism, reverses, blunders and self-inflicted disasters.”

In the second chapter, “God and Science,” Hedges provides an engrossing history of Darwinism and the Enlightenment, and their dark legacies of violence. He cites Friedrich Nietzsche’s fear that the British would use social Darwinism to justify imperialism, and offers a pellucid argument against science’s application to philosophy.

Hedges understands the depravity of which human beings are capable — be they secular or religious. “To turn away from God is harmless. To turn away from sin is catastrophic,” he writes.

At the same time, we all experience moments of transcendence — such as a parent’s love for his child — that we are driven to account for. The meaning of this contradiction is the domain of religion. Science can never adequately grapple with such subjective human complexity:

Scientific ideas … are embraced or rejected on the basis of quantifiable evidence. But human relationships and social organizations interact and function effectively when they are not rigid, when they accept moral ambiguity, and when they take into account the irrational.

Hedges draws from the works of artists like Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Uta Hagen, as well as figures like Thomas Aquinas, Sigmund Freud, Reinhold Niebuhr and Arthur Schopenhauer. These individuals, who wrestled with — and against — faith and a tragic worldview, serve as Hedges’ touchstones as he seeks to express the core limits of humanity and what he calls “the possibilities of religion.”

Hedges’ writing has a hurtling, runneth-over quality that can be redundant and vague at times (as in his section on the concept of “tempered free will”). He is also prone to cranky digressions (as in his section on a fashion designer profiled on CNN). And some readers may be disappointed to find that Hedges does not systematically dismantle each argument in the new atheists’ books.

Instead, Hedges views the new atheists not so much as an organized threat, but as indicators of a larger tendency in America toward a dangerously simplistic way of thinking. “It is fear, ignorance, a lack of introspection and the illusion that we can create a harmonious world that leads us to sanction the immoral,” Hedges writes. “Our enemies have no monopoly on sin, nor have we one on virtue.”

Hedges proposes the radical notions that we admit our complicity in the violence of the world and acknowledge the humanity of our enemies. Religion — with its other long history of encouraging compassion toward others and introspection about the evil at the center of humanity’s heart — is too valuable in this aim to be flatly dismissed. Amen.

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• Reader Comments

  I haven’t read this book, but have read several Hedges articles and seen the debates mentioned.  As an atheist, I agree his attempts at defending religion are pretty pathetic.  But his commentary on global politics and US imperialism are often spot on.  I cringe at so many of the political comments Harris and particularly Hitchens make (Dawkins is decidedly not like them on this point).  I really can’t understand their position that radical Islamists are motivated solely by religion and not by politics at all. 

  bin Laden gave three reasons for turning against the US (remember, he was our creation, but ok so long as his terror was directed at people we didn’t like).  One was that US bases are in the Saudi holy land, another that we support Israeli oppression against Palestinians while claiming to be neutral, and the last was the million or so killed by the sanctions against Iraq in the 1990’s.  Whether one accepts these as true or not is not the point.  The point is that two are entirely political reasons and the first one is both religious and political.  Even if the leaders of terrorist groups were driven solely by religion, their success in spreading their terrible creed to their minions is hugely driven by the political unrest encapsulated in the grievances above.

  That Harris and Hitchens are blind to this is difficult for me as a rationalist to explain, but here Hedges goes wrong again by saying that it is their atheism that drives them to this conclusion (if the above review is true).  Clearly atheists and the faithful can both go wrong on this point and I somehow doubt there are more atheists in this camp than religious people.

  Rule of thumb: Read Harris and Hitchens for their views on religion, but avoid them for political analysis.  Visa versa for Hedges.

  Posted by Valis on May 21, 2008 at 9:31 AM

  Though I’ve been a complete and unapologetic atheist since I was 12, I’d rather have one million people who think like Chris Hedges, than one Christopher Hitchens with power on this planet.

  I don’t know what the hell happened to Hitchens’ once-lucid brain. Was it booze, not enough fame, creeping obesity? Hard to believe that this is the same person who wrote a scathing (and factual) book on the crimes of Henry Kissinger, but who now praises Bush and Cheney’s Iraq Disaster?

  The man has gone completely around the bend. In his wrinkled and too-snug white suit and open shirt, he looks like a Miami coke dealer, or a sloppy drunk in some imagined 1980’s Casablanca. And in his rabid rants against ALL believers he sounds more like a Stalinist that the Atheists I hang out with. 

  I have huge problems with organized religion, as I’ve seen that they are all about control, manipulation, and the accumulation of wealth & power. However, individual Theists do not all fit into that mold, and can be generous, open, giving and non-judgmental, same as Atheists.

  I saw a PBS interview with Hedges. He’s sane, rational, tolerant, and most importantly- Anti-War. I could NOT care less care that he believes in God- so do some of my friends. That’s their business; it doesn’t affect my life.

  Posted by Marta on May 21, 2008 at 11:51 AM

  Thoughtless arrogance is a bad thing no matter the source. Islamists , Domionists, and many others are simply very displeased to see folk enjoying themselves, and think that an elite group should control such things and enjoy the benefits alone. The Religious fundamentalist would put their particular flavor in charge be that flavor Islamist, Dominionist, or Soviet Atheism. Thus even when it is Religious, it is Political.

  That said there are many folk of reason who are none the less also religious. There are also many Religions that do not include a god in their understanding. It is only this dance between the Judaic Trinity of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and only the denial of that concept that produces the likes of Harris, Hitchens, et al. and the lack of curiosity to look beyond that I find quite baffling.

  I would like to see a discussion about many concepts that have religious overtones, but the constant back and forth about whether the Bible is an accurate encyclopedia is a very sterile discussion, as is the horse race about it being a good source of Morality. A deep discussion of the actual issues and their place in society would be so much more interesting and productive

  Posted by FreeDem on May 22, 2008 at 4:59 PM

  As a long term atheist, I think any attitude toward religion that goes beyond mere acceptance of it to appreciation or even encouragement is wrong.

  The quote: “We are all atheists, I merely believe in one fewer gods than you. when you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” Is an important logical statement and embodies history, reason, and common sense.

  The religious point to religion as the motivation of great works of peace. Perhaps they were but good and bad people occur in every environment, but there are far more christians on death row than atheists. You can’t claim motivation for one and disavow responsibility for the other.

  I think we as a species have to grow up. The idea that some unprovable entity watches down over us is absurd. That it would choose one brutish boxer in the ring over another and yet allow thousands to die in a cyclone because of “free will,” is such an unreasonable position it must be considered childish “magical thinking.”

  I have come to the conclusion, in my life, that religion is harmful to the species and the planet. It allows unreasonable ideas to foster and it is now and historically a tool for evil men to use against those not equipped with the good sense of atheism.

  Posted by mlwmohawk on May 23, 2008 at 11:13 AM

  mlwmohawk
  You make many excellent points, which I completely agree with.
  However, we must be careful not to appear condescending to Theists—at least the one we want as friends.

  My own mother ( an otherwise intelligent, educated person) had the audacity to tell me” “Of course you believe in god! You just don’t realize it.”

  That kind of patronizing attitude makes enemies, and I want to keep my Theist friends. I just don’t discuss religion with them. Spirituality, yes, but not religion.

  In my ideal world, there would be no religion, and spirituality would be based on ethics and common sense.

  However, there seems to be a strange need in the majority of the human race to explain the existential abyss.  Why else do so many keep seeing Jesus and/or Mary in water stains, or crumpets?

  Posted by Marta on May 23, 2008 at 12:55 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

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